Remember that kerfuffle about Live Aid funds making their way into rebel hands? Turns out the BBC had no credible evidence behind its allegations, and has only taken about 6 months to admit it. Owen Barder has a detailed discussion here.
Working on the assumption that the BBC was a bit more trustworthy of that, my response to Geldof’s rage might have been a tad bit mocking. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: I deeply regret that mocking took place.
Update: In the comments section, Nicholas points out that in my previous post on this, several comments indicated that the diversion was accepted wisdom before the BBC story. Can anyone reconcile this? I believe the difference is, as the Barder says, that money sent to rebel areas was likely to have been diverted, but that this was a relatively small percentage. Still, how do these two match up?
“..everybody who’s paid the slightest bit of attention in the last 25 years knows that the Ethiopian government misused the aid funds it received in the mid-1980′s, and that very little of that aid actually helped prevent starvation.” — TIA
“To this day there is no suggestion, let alone evidence, that any of the aid provided in government-controlled Ethiopia, by governments, Band Aid and others, was diverted.” – Owen Barder
